Cold blast

I did not get a full night's sleep last night. I'm not surprised, though. Full-night sleeps are hard to come by in the city. Loud patrons leaving the nearby restaurant at 2 a.m. have woken us up before. So have sirens, garbage trucks, and drunk Polish soccer fans. I once awoke to the sound of a man slamming his car into the iron fence in front of our 3-story building. I looked out the window, saw that everyone was okay, yawned and went back to bed. These things happen.

Recently, Kyle has been to blame for many of my restless nights. In his first few months, keeping us up was one of his favorite pastimes, along with finding creative ways to dirty the curtains near his changing table. We knew we were in trouble when he cried throughout his first night home from the hospital. We almost brought him back the next day, but then Jennifer reminded me that he was worth keeping because he'll be able to accomplish a lot of chores for us in about ten years. In recent months he has slept much better, but other factors related to him tend to keep me up. For example, I can barely sleep a wink when I know he has a fever, even if he's not making a sound. I also have trouble sleeping whenever I fear Kyle might be taken away in the night by pint-sized circus clowns, but this only seems to happen whenever I eat Chinese food close to midnight. Last night, though, I was simply concerned that our son was going to be too cold.

In case you haven't heard, New York is caught in the middle of a violent fight between summer and winter, with spring deciding to sit it out this year. Last week, New Yorkers could walk down the street wearing nothing but a thong, but this week only the visiting Eskimos are doing that. The sudden burst of cold air outside has been cooling down our apartment since Saturday. Our heat, which we do not control, had not been running because, as I've screamed at Mother Nature, IT'S MAY!


(Above: Kyle, seen here stealing my slippers, wears a heavy sweatshirt inside the apartment, just three weeks before the unofficial start of summer)

The nights have been awfully chilly, as was last night, when I woke up to a groan from Kyle, amplified over our baby monitor. I realized he might be a little uncomfortable, since he had only one blanket in his crib, compared with the seventeen blankets, comforters, and bearskins covering Jennifer and me. I got up, walked to Kyle's room, and quietly placed a second blanket on him. It was 5 a.m., which isn't too early, but it felt earlier since it was still dark out, and Jennifer and I made the mistake of going to bed after midnight.

Thirty minutes or so later, Kyle woke and found the blanket. I know this because, instead of snuggling in more and appreciating its warmth, the little guy noticed something new in his crib and thought it was fun to play with. Suddenly he was yelping joyfully and making karate-chop sounds. Jennifer and I awoke to the party going on at the other end of our apartment. We groaned and tried to hide more under our covers until the noise stopped or he called for us. Fortunately, the noise stopped about five minutes later.

About forty-five minutes later, the party began again. Woohoo! Extra blanket! Yippee! Based on the evidence, this is the most likely time when the party got a little bit out of hand. However, we did not know what was going on, so we simply waited for the celebration to end, and it did about ten minutes later.

Five minutes after that, the alarm went off. We threw it across the room and slept for fifteen more minutes. Then I went to the computer while Jennifer took a shower. Shortly afterwards, I heard Kyle again, but this time he was just talking to himself. The party, apparently, was over. I let him chat away, and at 7 a.m. I decided to say hello.

I opened the door to Kyle's room. He immediately said, "hi." He was lying down in his crib with a smile on his face. The blankets, as I had suspected, were not on him, but rather tossed off to the side. Everything seemed to be perfectly normal, except for the fact that Kyle was wearing nothing but his diaper.

"Kyle!" I shouted, and he cackled. I'm shivering in the cold, but he hardly seemed to notice. I'm guessing the clothes came off while he was making a lot of noise, about 45 minutes earlier. Yet, as I stood there, he was still basking in the glow of his extra blanket party, and proud that he was able to discard his clothing without help from any of us. He kept smiling as I quickly put his pajamas back on, still unaware that his toys had developed frost.

I learned today that, for Kyle, weather matters not. If summer's just around the corner, then Kyle feels it's time to act like summer's just around the corner, regardless of how cold it is. Have a great time. And, if you want to party, all you need is an extra blanket. You can have a blast with the simple things. Maybe this is a lesson for all of us.

Or maybe my kid's just crazy.